Day 786: It's Time For Dhaka!

It was a morning of running a few pending errands before I could fly
off to Dhaka for the International Film Festival!

I was done with everything including the never-ending packing by about
2 in the afternoon after which I waited for the hubby who was on his
way back from India.

He reached home at about 2 after his week long trip and at 4:30 it was
time for me to take off. The hubby, who is going to join me in Dhaka
next Tuesday only, very gracefully agreed to accompany me back to the
airport from where he just got home, so that we can spend a little bit
more time together before my flight!

So together we went to the airport, checked me in, had the customary
Ananda Bhavan meal, the McCafe Himalayan Chai Tea Latte (something I
should seriously consider having more often) and then it was really
time for Dhaka!

After an eventless flight (on which I watched the surprisingly well
made Tamil film Ko), I reached Dhaka at about 8pm.

The volunteer from the film festival was waiting for me and he took me
straight to join an after-screening dinner party organized at the
Uttara Club.

There I met the Mausams editor who had arrived from Mumbai last night
to attend the festival. It was good to see him after so many months (I
think last was in August in Kerala when he came down for the Mausams
screening there) and we caught up with each other over dinner.

Dinner was a small, cozy affair where interestingly, there were more
drinks (alcoholic, of course) than food and I got to meet many of the
other festival delegates, guests and organizers. There were delegates
from Iran, Malaysia, Russia, Italy, US, Japan, China, Brazil,
Australia, India etc. and it was fun to know all of them.

Post dinner, we were taken to our hotel. I must mention that the
traffic in Bangladesh is exceptionally...hmmm... fascinating, to say
the very least. There are more cycle rickshaws than anything else, and
they go whichever way they please in their slow pace, which in turn
disrupt everything else. And everything other than the cycle rickshaw
believes that it is running on some expressway and tries to race and
cut lanes inspite of the fact that there are a thousand other vehicles
crowding around it. Like I said, fascinating.

So after that drive, I got to the hotel, checked in, freshened up and
then started to work on the editing of my short film Inganeyum Oru
Katha together with the editor. Given that he is based out of Mumbai
and me in Singapore, we wanted to ensure that we make use of the time
together in Dhaka to finish off this pending work.

After a few hours of editing and some good progress, it was time to
call it a day!

Night 1 in Dhaka ends!
215 more to go.